Pots of Potatoes

I have eight florists buckets in the cold frame planted with Vivaldi earlies.  It means they are protected against the cold wind and frosts.    I am using home made compost to cover them as they push through.  I haven't bothered to sieve it and as you can see there are bits of stems that haven't quite rotted down in the mix, but I don't really think it matters.  One thing I look forward to is the first harvest of potatoes some time in late May/early June.  They grow pretty well in containers as long as they are well watered.  I have been growing them this way for the last four or five years very successfully.  Just enough for a couple of meals per pot.  I usually grow Charlotte but couldn't get hold of any at my local garden centre so bought Vivaldi instead - a similar tasting potato and hopefully just as versatile.  Fresh from plot to pan to plate - totally delicious.  To my mind this is what growing your own veg is all about.

"The flowers of the potato, delicate petals whose stamens bunch together to form a point, are amongst the most charming in the vegetable garden.  Marie Antoinette wore them in her hair. The flowers of the Salad Blue are perhaps the most beautiful of all, an ethereal lavender and white, with deep orange-gold stamens often heavy with pollen.  Charlotte, a soft candy pink; Kestrel, a piercing lilac and white.  Summer rain and even cloud makes their flowers close and droop like a swan in repose.  As dusk falls, they gently close."~ Nigel Slater